FIRST SETTLEMENT.    13

miles more north, which run into the Lake.’ This took place while
the regal government of the mother country was suspended, while
there was no probability that Parliament would allow the patent of
Mason, which was of doubtful authority, and while the colonists
were clearing themselves, as much as they could with safety, from
subjection to the English government. It was done, also, when the
inhabitants of New-Hampshire were desirous of remaining under
the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, as a protection from anarchy
among themselves, and from the depredations of the enemy without
Mr. Mason renewed his suit, as soon as Charles II. ascended the
throne and began to manifest his hostility to the Bay colony for
their anti-royal sentiments and practices. A decision was rendered
in the favor of Mason, in 1675, at the time the inhabitants of New-
England were striving with the greatest power to avert their
threatened extermination by the Indians, under the leadership of
Philip. Edward Randolph, a relative of the claimant, always
ready to visit our shores with unwelcome messages, came over the
next year. He visited New-Hampshire and made known the de-
sires of Mr. Mason to the inhabitants. Some, as is usual in such
emergences, were forward to denounce Massachusetts, and thought
by this means to make capital for the advancement of their own
interests. The inhabitants of Dover protested against the claim
of Mason ; declared that they had bona fide purchased their lands
of the Indians; recognized their subjection to the government of
Massachusetts, under whom they had lived so long and happily,
and by whom they were now assisted in defending their estates and
families against the savage enemy. They petitioned the King to
leave them unmolested. Portsmouth protested in a similar manner,
and asked for like relief from his royal highness. The intrigues
of the political foes of Massachusetts being favored by the King,
they succeeded with him, and, in 1680, New-Hampshire, by his
orders, became a colony. The principal inhabitants, even then
knowing that this change was to forward other purposes than their
benefit, with reluctance withdrew from Massachusetts.

Such a course encroached upon the limits of the latter colony,
by withdrawing from it the following towns. The dates annexed
to the towns denote their incorporation; italics express their In-
dian names; and Roman letters their former English names.

“Portsmouth, 1653. Piscataquack, Strawberry Bank.—Settled
under David Thompson, 1643; patronized by Sir Fernando Gorges